Who YOU Callin' Casual?

There is a misconception floating around that decorators are casual players.

It's true that a lot of us aren't as interested in combat. Some of us may have never been on a raid before, and there are just as many of us who don't have capped level combat characters as there are those of us who do.

And yet, decorators tend to be some of the most hardcore players. Yes, you heard me correctly. Decorators tend to be some of the most hardcore players.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it.

Decorators tend to be some of the most hardcore players.

Not all of us raid. Not all of us roleplay. But all of us spend hours and hours and hours and hours lining things up just right. We go short on sleep to adjust a fireplace just where we want it. We craft, quest, raid, and writ endlessly to obtain the items we want for our homes. If we don't raid, we pay raiders for what we want. We farm tirelessly for materials during holidays--and EQ2 has a lot of holidays!

Decorators (from what I have observed) spend the most SC out of any other group of players. We buy houses. We buy furniture. We buy home expanders. We buy more houses. We buy more expanders. We buy character slots to host characters specifically for the names of house zones. My character list is full of them. Hello, Library, Town, Hallway, and Abode! We buy appearance armor not only for ourselves, but for mannequins to place in our homes, or to dress our guild hall guards with.

We spend anywhere from a few hours to a few months on a single zone in the game--the house zone we are working on. Have you ever heard a raider say, "Yeah, it took us weeks to down XYZ mob?" Guess what? It took a decorator months to get a house ready for publication, and a raider will likely only spend a few hours a week raiding. So their weeks turn out to be less than 24 hours of play (Yes, I know that they can spend longer than that getting a raid down, but for the most part, I'd say 24 hours is a safe average). To put that into perspective, I spent four hours working on the grand staircase in Blazewolf's hall. Four hours. On a staircase. And I'm fast at using the circle tool. I shudder to think of how long it would take anyone else.

Let's also consider the time to gather materials for a house. It's true that we have guild harvesters, a pack pony, and a goblin. But sometimes you need more. My dojo alone (the Homes and Tomes Credit Union) took 23 eucalyptus lumber and 30 brellium ore! It's a tiny little space used exclusively for holding special harvests and apprentices.

I took Jazabelle, grabbed a harvesting potion, and spent about three hours harvesting eucalyptus. Brellium took another three hours. That's six hours of harvesting just to obtain the materials for furniture for a tiny space (and I'll admit I came out of there with extra eucalyptus and brellium, but we can always use more rares in a crafting and decorating guild).

So the next time you think of a decorator as casual, think again. I've spent on average of 120 hours per house I build. That's a long time.

Decorating is hardcore.

What Is It Like?

I was chatting with a friend in another guild late last year. She's a decorator (of course), and she's in a hardcore RP guild.

"What's it like?" she asked me wistfully as we each engaged in our respective play of choice for the evening, she at some tavern somewhere, while I meticulously aligned tiles in one of my warehouses.

"What's what like?" I resized the tiles and stacked them again, trying to neatly fit the maximum number of tiles in the minimum amount of space.

"What's it like being in the only decorating guild around?"

I was quick to reassure her that Homes and Tomes isn't the only decorating guild around. There are others. Homes and Tomes just happens to be one of the largest, with a member list that spans servers.

I am asked this question in various way rather regularly. Sometimes it's someone who wants to know what the guild is like because they're interested in joining. Other times, it's someone who wants to start up their own decorating guild, but they aren't sure if they want to invest the time and effort. Still other times, they're people like my friend--wistfully looking in, dreaming of life in a guild where saying "How many times the scale do you move a tile to line them up perfectly?" isn't met with confused silence.

Sometimes I get a variation of the question that focuses on me instead. "What's it like leading the only decorating guild around?" I had someone ask earlier this week. Once again, I assured them that Homes and Tomes isn't the only decorating guild around. And then I had to explain that it's work.

Like running any other guild, running a decorating guild is work. You are responsible for ensuring that there are no conflicts of personality within the guild. You are responsible for the people you promote to officer. You are responsible for the events that your guild runs, even if you have no hand in organizing them. Your guild's name is on the tag, and you need to make sure it's represented properly.

In some ways, running a decorating guild is easier than running other types of guilds. For the most part, decorators tend to be soloers--decorating is a solo playstyle. While you can (and most of us do!) engage in conversation while decorating, the act of decorating itself is entirely single player.

Decorators also tend to be self-starters. We're a group who has to come up with our own ideas, find the materials to go with our ideas, and build what we envision. It's more common to hear a decorator say, "Does anyone want to join me for an instance?" instead of hearing the dreaded, "So, is anyone running an instance?" from a follower.

The hardest part of running a decorating guild is the management. We're a guild full of crafters, whose crafting serves the purpose of decorating. Unlike most other crafters, we use all tiers of material constantly. Our harvest depot has a revolving door.

How do you measure who's participating in a decorating guild? You can't go by the number of homes a person has done, or the number of commissions they've taken. You can check the status they've earned and donated, but that's only one small aspect of participating. How about the items they've given to other guildmates? Or when they stop their own projects to give advice to someone else? Add in the fact that Homes and Tomes isn't pure decor, because we also encourage roleplay, and we have a few people whose only interest is combat, and you have a guild that's very hard to administrate for.

Then there's the commission aspect. I'm regularly contacted by people looking to commission a member of the guild to build their home. Over the past two and a half years of the guild's life, numerous individuals have spoken to me about hiring a member of H&T to build their homes. Guild members' mailboxes are full of "So-and-so is looking to hire a decorator" mails that have been sent out to the guild. Once I've sent out the mail, I then have to follow up and find out if the person has been contacted by a decorator.

We finally got around to putting up a commission form on our website to help streamline the process a little, but it's still a lot of followup work.

But let's get back to the original question. So what is it like being in a guild where someone can ask "How many times the scale do you move a tile to line them up perfectly?" and hear the answer, "2 times, unless you're working with the dark or light frozen tiles, or the petrified bone tile"?

It's a place where you're guaranteed to share interests with everyone else. It's a place where you can converse while working on your home. It's a place where the puns flow thickly, and innuendo practically drowns you.

There's very little drama, for which I'm grateful, since we're all easygoing adults.

It's the best feeling in the world. It's home.

November 2012 SoE Gamer of the Month?

On October 25th, I received an email that I never expected to receive. I had been chosen as November's SoE Gamer of the Month.

I admit that when I first saw the email title, I almost sent it to the spam folder. Me? SoE's Gamer of the Month? It sounded like a phishing email. I knew from Aurelis' stint as Gamer of the Month that people usually submit themselves. They fill out a questionnaire, including why they should be picked as Gamer of the Month. I hadn't done anything of the sort, so how had I been picked as SoE's Gamer of the Month?

However, certain things didn't add up to this being a phishing email. For one, the email came from an actual name, not the word "Congratulations!" or something like that. For another, all of the links in the email appeared to direct me to exactly what they said they would. Third, they weren't asking for my login information. Fourth, they addressed me as "Jazabelle," not by my email address. Then I looked at the signature. The email definitely appeared to be from a legit SoE employee. My hands started to shake. I was really chosen to be the SoE Gamer of the Month?

People who have been around me for a while know that I tend to be a pretty private person. I don't like flaunting myself. I still become terrified about speaking in public before any sort of group, to the point where I swear it feels like I'm having an out-of-body experience when I actually do talk. My head goes all floaty, and I can never clearly remember exactly what I said while I was speaking. Interviews, even written ones, do the same thing to me. Aurelis interviewed me back when BiblioNorrath was a thriving website, and we bibliophiles hadn't been regulated to a small subsection of the housing community. We roleplayed out the interview in-game, and my hands shook so badly the entire time, I had to retype each answer several times before it made sense.

So being the SoE Gamer of the Month really shook me up. It made a little more sense when I replied to the email, asking for some clarifications on some of the questions. I'd been nominated by one of the Community members who has begun spending more time on the Homeshow forums. It was likely the layout editing classes that really did it.

Now, I wasn't the first to think of layout editing classes. Gracey taught classes on the Test_Copy server, and before that, I and several other people offered private lessons whenever someone needed to learn some aspect of the editor. I'd even helped Gracey teach her classes in the beginning, and stepped in a few times to "sub" when she couldn't make it. But people had been requesting classes from me for a while, and I finally decided that I might as well go through with it and teach the layout editor basics, not just aspects of the editor. I haven't started those classes yet, since I'm still putting together the picture tutorials to go along with the classes. Sometimes it's just easier to be able to see exactly what you need to do when you're trying to learn how to do something new.

Being chosen as the Gamer of the Month really made me look back on my EQ2 experience. I wanted to really do the interview right. I wanted my answers to be clear, carefully thought-out, and interesting. I decided that for once, I could be less private about myself, and share who I was and how I came to be.

I've never set out to be "someone" in the games I play. I'm uncomfortable with attention, and even more uncomfortable drawing attention to myself. I've learned why when I've praised other people in the past, they acted uncomfortable--I too am uncomfortable with the praise. It often makes me feel like a fraud. The homes I build are easy for me. They seem simple and plain, nothing special to write home about. Even the Cathedral, with its vaulted and ribbed ceiling is actually quite simple when broken down into its component parts. It's nothing like Jesdyr's chapel, with its elaborate architecture.

However, the response to the article has proven to me that no matter how much I feel like a fraud, other people don't see me as such. For the most part, the comments on the Facebook page have been positive. The tells I received in-game were positive. The messages I received in-game were also positive. And when I mentioned to Zhadowsee in bewilderment that someone had told me it was well-deserved recognition, he informed me that yes, it was. He isn't the sort to hold my hand. On the rare occasions that I start to act haughty for whatever reason, he brings me down to earth by gently mocking me about being "the Jazabelle." I never want to be the Jazabelle. I'm just Jazabelle, that crazy person who's a little bit obsessive about the alignment of the items in her home, who knows the layout editor well enough to teach it to others, and who writes the occasional picture tutorial to go along with it. So if Zhadowsee and others say it's well-deserved recognition, I suppose it must be.

Overall, I mostly feel bewildered and honored beyond belief. I'm still not really sure how this happened.

The article, for anyone wishing to read it.

To Commission Or Not

The Cathedral -- probably my most well-known project.

On occasion, I'll get a tell out of the blue, asking if I do commissions.

Sometimes the tell starts with flattery. The person contacting me offers praise, and specific examples of their favorite aspects of my work.

Other times, they've heard about me from a friend, or maybe they've seen a single home I've done. They aren't sure how to approach me. House decorating isn't their thing, and while they want a nice looking home, they really don't know what to say to one of those crazy decorators.

People come to me with awesome ideas, ordinary ideas, or no ideas. The one thing that everyone approaching me has in common is that they've decided that I'm the decorator who should work for them.

What do I tell them when they ask to hire me? The short answer to that question is "maybe." As I mentioned in the Cathedral blog post, I'm terrible about doing commissions in a timely manner. If it's not life biting me in the rear, it's me becoming distracted doing something else. I should say no to people, because honestly, it's not fair to make someone wait six months to a year while I hammer out a house. However, I have a hard time saying no when asked.

Do I like doing commissions?

Nope. I really don't. I love the ideas that people come up with, and I love trying to capture those ideas. But I don't like decorating for someone (see note at the end of the article). It's one reason why I had such a great time building my Tudor Farmhouse and then putting the layout up for sale. I got to build what I wanted, when I wanted, with no stress about finishing in a timely manner. Putting it up for sale as a layout like that also means that any time someone wants the layout (with or without modifications), I can easily just pop in to the house and load it up. It means no waiting for either party.

The Tudor Farmhouse -- I should have waited for building blocks!

There's also the issue of the homeowner's vision versus my own. Some homeowners are great to work for. They let me do what I want, and only pop in to say things like, "I'm not really that fond of the centerpiece you built. Do you think you could switch it to something else?" I'm okay with being told that what I've done doesn't mesh with the vision someone has for a project. It's their home, after all. However, I like to be given the freedom to do what I want. Sure, I'll discuss it with the person. I'll ask them what they were hoping for, so that I have an idea of what to aim for.

If the house is meant for roleplay, I'll ask what sort of roleplay, and tailor the home to that. When I did the Cathedral, I knew that the home would be used as a venue for speeches. Much like a real life house of worship, the people roleplaying followers of Innoruuk would be gathering there for sermons. That meant that I had to ensure that the benches I used could be sat on, and with as little fiddling around with positioning as possible. Little details like that are what make a good project great, in my opinion.

Menan's Manor. I don't think the homeowner plays anymore.

Unfortunately, for every homeowner I've worked for who has been awesome, I've had a homeowner who insisted on moving things around on me or "helping" me decorate. I don't play nice with others when it comes to decorating a space. If you've asked me to decorate your house, and then you come in behind me and tweak things right and left, I start to feel like I shouldn't even bother. After all, you've shown that you have the ability and the inclination to decorate, so why am I here?

If a homeowner comes in after I'm done and I've been paid, I could care less if they move things around, tear things down, add things in, or just pack up the house (all right, I might be peeved if they packed up the house). I did what was asked, and I've received my compensation. Besides, it's their home. But if a homeowner does this while I'm working on a home, I start to become annoyed.

Occasionally, when someone hires me, they start to feel like they're better than I am. They've hired me to do a job. That means that no matter how much they admire me or my work, they're in a class above me. I'm working for them, after all. It doesn't matter that my $15 a month for my Gold subscription is just as good as their $15 a month. It doesn't matter that decorating is just as valid a play style as combat or raiding. I'm not "really" playing the game as it's meant to be played, so I'm not as good as they are. (Don't get me wrong. I respect all other play styles. Just because it's not my cup of tea doesn't mean that I don't respect it. However, this is the attitude that I've had thrust upon me more than once simply because I prefer the non-combat aspects of the game, and am working for someone.)

Then of course, there's the problem of cost. What do you charge someone who's asking you to build something? Especially something as individual as a house?

My guild's hall, and the only guild hall I'll ever decorate.

It's only recently that I've learned to save my platinum. I've been playing since late 2005, and my platinum amount across my account fluctuated from between no money to maybe, if I was lucky, thirty platinum. At one point, I had to sell some of the gear I'd saved for appearances in order to afford the price of the boat (back when the boat cost money in Freeport and Qeynos) in order to go out questing.

A house one year ago would cost me approximately sixty to eighty platinum to decorate. Today, I can drop sixty platinum on a stable. Not an entire house, just a stable. This doesn't take into account the amount of time a house takes me. Even when I'm obsessed with completing a project and work on it nonstop (and this doesn't happen often), it still takes me upwards of 40 hours of gameplay to finish. It's not that I'm slow at decorating. I'm actually pretty fast about getting the structure up and into place. The problem is that I'm also compulsively detail oriented, and will tweak items until they are lined up to the pixel. Shifting items by 0.0001 units is not uncommon for me.

Back to platinum and gameplay--in 2 hours of gameplay, questing in a level 90 zone I've never been to before, I can make probably 20 platinum. Questing in a zone where I do know the zone and quests, I can make more than that.

So if I were questing rather than decorating, I could make 400 platinum or more in the amount of time it takes to build a house.

The Norrathian Research Library is perhaps one of my favorites.

However, as I said, it's only recently that I've begun to actually save platinum. 400 platinum sounds like an obscene expense to me. And when you do projects, you're supposed to come out ahead, not just break even. That means that to "come out ahead," I'd need to charge more than 400 platinum. I understand that there are people out there who wouldn't blink twice to drop 400 platinum on a house. I wouldn't drop that on a house, and I'm the one building the house!

Then we need to take into consideration reputation. I don't believe I'm that good. Yes, my houses are close to flawless from an alignment standpoint. My textures line up the best I can make them, and if it's a tossup between a wall with varying sizes of building blocks that only takes three items, and a wall of identically sized building blocks of twenty items, I'll go for the twenty items because it looks better. But for the most part, the homes I build are simple homes. The Tudor Farmhouse? It's just a house. My Kelethin cottage? Once again, just a house. The Cathedral isn't, but that one was done on commission. And when you come right down to it, the Cathedral isn't actually that architecturally impressive. It's a rectangle. A pretty rectangle, but still just a rectangle. There are plenty of people out there with the vision to put together architecturally impressive pieces of work that I'd love to have for my own. They may not line things up as nicely as I do, or have flawless textures, but their work is more intricate than mine.

So should I be charging what I feel I'm worth, or what other people feel I'm worth? Especially when the amount I feel I'm worth is very different from the amount that other people seem to be willing to pay?

But not all people think my work is worth much. In quiet times, I've had people request houses. We discussed the house they were interested in very seriously, right up until we got to price.

There are people who think they're doing me a favor by offering me an empty house to decorate, and expect that I should do it for free. Of course they'll cover the fuel costs. They're keeping the house, after all. But I should be honored that they're offering me an empty house to indulge in my silly decorating pastime!

I've never had so much traffic during construction as I did with the Cathedral.

Then there are the people who would like a house, but don't have a lot of platinum. For them, a couple of hundred platinum for a house is outside the bounds of reasonable. They'd have to save for a year or two to see it.

And then, I've been offered upwards of 4000 platinum to build a home.

I turned them down.

Why?

When it comes right down to it--stress.

I decorate in EQ2 for a variety of reasons. I play because I love decorating--I've done it everywhere from The Sims to SWG. I decorate because it's a form of art, and the fastest and easiest method I've found to express my artistic side in a method that people can interact with and enjoy. I decorate because it's stress relief. I become absorbed in the numbers of the editor, in the placement of items, in trying to get reality to match my vision. Yes, there can be times when it's frustrating, especially if something isn't working out, but overall it's much less stressful than anything else life can throw at me.

Stress is a big problem for me. In Homeshow, I've mentioned a few times (all right, probably more often than I should--I do tend to whine about it) that I suffer from food allergies. I've mentioned that the foods trigger migraines for me.

What I haven't mentioned is that the food triggers are only one set of triggers. Stress, weather, sudden exposure to light--the list goes on. And I don't just get migraines. I have what one neurologist likes to call "intractable chronic debilitating migraines." In layman's terms, that means that I come down with migraines so bad, I'm put out of commission for days or weeks at a time. And it happens a lot. And they don't respond to medication.

Did I mention that stress is a big problem for me? I think I did. Even thinking about being stressed causes me minor migraines. Actually stressing out can send me to bed with the curtains drawn and the covers over my head.

Decorating is a sort of meditation for me. You don't need to use (much) math with the layout editor, but to get things lined up precisely, it helps to know how to do it. Math is also a form of meditation for me. It keeps me calm, even when the numbers aren't adding up right. I use more math than the average decorator because of that. Not only do I use it to ensure that things line up perfectly, but it's soothing for me.

It's one of the few things I can do even with a migraine. And while it doesn't help the pain, it allows me to mostly ignore it.

The real answer to "to commission or not?" is "I really shouldn't." I'll do it, especially if I really like an idea that someone has, but I shouldn't.

Note: Thank you to Niami for reminding me of this. I wanted to add it on, but forgot to before I posted.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that this is mostly about people I don't know approaching me with commission projects. When people I know approach me, it's a different story. This is especially true when they understand chronic conditions.

I like to do projects for friends and close acquaintances. Strangers are different. Strangers may say they understand chronic issues, but chances are that they'll become frustrated if their home isn't done within a month. I've had it happen time and again. I tell people that it'll be a while before I can start on their project, and once I do, they may not see a lot of progress. I tell them they can expect the project to take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a year from when I start. They say they're okay with it, and then they become pushier and pushier if it's not completed quickly once work starts.

Friends understand that I've had periods of time where I disappear from the game for a month or more, and that when I do, I'm probably flat on my back in bed, desperately wishing for a migraine cure. Close acquaintances have the potential to become friends, and oftentimes it's a decorating project that does it. I enjoy those sorts of projects. It's much less stressful for me when a friend and I can negotiate a price, instead of the onus being on me.

So feel free to approach me about a project, but understand that I may say no. And if I say yes, please understand that I will take my time. It's not that I don't like you. It's not that I'd rather work on other projects. It's that I do what's best for my stress levels at the moment, and if I'm not feeling like your project is one I can handle at the moment, I may work on others, or I may not decorate at all.

Happy decorating!